uh, it's a big pleasure for me to be here, we will be looking forward to. welcome to spotlight, israel has carried out its deadliest attacks in monsan syria, leaving dozens of people dead. the aggression has coincided with a drone attack launched by terrorists in itlip. israel has also ramped up its deadly air strikes on lebanon in recent days. this is while the regime is pressing ahead with its genocidal war on the gaza strip and there seems to be no end insight. to the nearly six-month assault

despite growing international pressure. on this edition of spotlight, we'll try to find out why israel uh is uh trying to increase tensions and what would be the repercussions of such escalation for the entire region and beyond. our guests tonight spotlight are: international human rights defender ziad ibrahim patel joining. from johannesburg and we also have human rights activist movi joining us from houston, texas. gentlemen, welcome to the program. let's start off with mr. patel in johannesburg, it's great to have you with us. so now israel, as we mentioned, in our intros launched a fresh attack on syria targeting number of locations in the northwestern city of aleppo. the attack is left number of civilians and military person.

dead, it's damaged public and private property. now the syrian military said the israeli aggression coincided with a drone attack by uh terrorist organizations launch from idlib and the western countryside of of aleppo as the massacre in gaza rages on, how do you perceive the israelis actions uh in other areas of the region and how much of this increased aggression would you say is tied to israel's failures in gaza? good evening and thank, thank you for having me on this show. yes, indeed, this is the normal cause of action that israel has been doing over many years and as the war rages quite rightly in gaza, in fact the genocide as it rages quite in gaza, israel is feeling the pressure, it's feeling the pressure of their resistance movements that have continued. as

israel has continued unabaited in its atrocities and crimes against palestinians and we got to put this in context that all these extraterritorial attacks are unlawful under international law uh to to come you conduct these strikes in syria and again we got to look at you know what was military advantage and compared to what you know what human causation in other words what was the human beings that were lost in this, they would call this the um, so for instance, human beings and innocent are always caught up in this conflict unfortunately, but this this continues and israel, we must hold israel to account, but unfortunately this is the situation because israel feels that it's losing control in terms of its fight against the resistance movements and tried to

suppress and equalize where he perceives uh thats to be uh and that's why we've seen this this increased attacks in the region. mov, let's also focus on the growing tensions between lebanon's hezballah resistance movement and uh forces of the israeli regime. the israelies have targeted vehicle in the city of tire with a drone leaving one lebanese dead. hezbal has also carried out retaliatory missile strikes. on israeli positions in the occupied territories, are the israelis actively pursuing more tensions in the region and how do they benefit from this? i think this is a sign of israel being very vulnerable and a sign of them being weak, so because they're being defeated in the gaza strip, the solution that they're trying to come up with this to expand the war in the region to create chaos in the region and and that's why we see them acting so

erratically where now they've attacked syria, the the fighting on the northern front with hizbillah has been happening since october 7th in which... "many of hizbullah's fighters have been have been have been martered, but hizbullah has also been retaliating to um to strategically retaliating to israel's attacks as well, and as matter of fact, i wouldn't be exaggerating in in stating that the role that hisbollah has played on the northern front has led to thousands, over 10 thousand settlers evacuating from that part of occupied palestine." so hisbullah is playing that very key role, so it is quite clear that just how israel sees a mass as a threat, just like they see syria as a threat, they see hizbullah as a threat equivalent to that of palestinian freedom fighters, so in short, if

we summarize and if we conclude that the zionist regime of israel considers the access of resistance as a threat as a genuine threat to its very existence, then we can understand the attacks on on israel, we can understand the constant, the constant attacks on the southern front in in lebanon as well, and ironically and unfortunately the zist regime um another sign of the weaknesses that for the most part their targets are usually civilians, may that be in palestine, syria or even lebanon, whereas the resistance... front has always focused on targeting military personnel, and adding to the point that my colleague made earlier about syria, i think it's important to note that the fact that italy, idlip, the attack of terrorists in

idlib was seemed almost coordinated with israel's attacks, goes to show that these splinter groups, these terrorist groups been... operating in idlib who were operating in syria, they were kicked out by hisbullah in syria, have always been a proxy of the us empire and the zianist regime, they've always served their purpose, so those who are criticizing hisbullah of intervening in israel in intervening in in syria, now understand and now know why syria has always been of such great importance to the axis of resistance. mr. patel, how important has this unified, response been from the resistance front in the region, there's lebanon, yemen, iraq, resistance groups in syria, uh, were the israelis in washington expecting that from all of the resistance fronts in the region? i think we all know that palestine uh

has been a state of resistance for several decades undergoing beligerent military occupation in the occupied palestinian. territories and in occupied palestine at large, it we've always known, and i mean the enemies of palestine, the americans, the israelis have always known that there are certain groups that will be steadfast to the standing with the resistance of palestine, which is a fundamental right under international law, because the right to resistance is strongly associated to the right of self determination and palestine. need to exert that right, um, so i think in some in some cases they may have been surprised by the uh broadening of the axes of resistance, as we've seen the amenis in yemen, closure of the red sea, the you know

the the stopping of ships in that area, and stopping that kind of cargo, which is very good dvs campaign, and then we've... seeing the access of resistance in southern lebanon, northern occupied palestine and of course in syria and iraq, and that needs to broaden, we need to look look at this also from from the context that we've got arab countries around palestine, syria, jordan, or well let me rather put jordan, egypt and other countries that have normalized, some countries have normalized with the zionist regime, and we've seen that there's no real military intervention despite the carnage in gaza, and just coming back to my previous point, and i think it's important what my colleague mentioned is that in all of the attacks by these terror groups and israel and that by the us, and of course we must also remember

that the united the european union and european union countries sell huge and licensed huge volumes of arms to israel and this is being used in descriptive. definitely for many years since i think the 2009 war when we issued when we launched the first docket criminal complaint against israel uh with south african authorities we had focused. and war crimes where israel has perpetually used indiscriminate use of force and indistinction of military target to civilian population, that has continued. israel is continues to be responsible, criminally responsible for igrigous crimes such as crimes against humanity, crimes of apart, torture, force displacement and many other crimes and of course now we see genocide, whereas the arm resistance of the arm resistance group. have have had focused targeted areas, and i think when we look at

this, it needs to be looked at, is it from the perspective of international law, and what are the laws of war and what must, what must be complied with, and what, what are the levels that a certain use of force must comply with, or do we need to look at it from an islamic perspective of what our responsibilities are, and i think the resistance groups are very conscious of the islamic. responsibilities in terms of conflict and how to uh, what of the aggressor in these instances? yes, let's go back to mr. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has defiantly vowed to go ahead with this military campaign, this genocidal massacre, saying that the international pressure on his regime will not work, have all the years of impunity and us cover for israel made this child killing regime believe that it's actually above the law, and it's safe from accountability, absolutely, there is

absolutely no doubt about that that the zionist regime independent of the us is nothing, it has no power, the only reason why the science regime has been imposed on the region of west asia is because of the support that it gains from the us within the international community, we now see that the european union is also taking a very clear stance in in in shifting away from being a party to the zianist, the the israeli zionist crimes that they are committing in in gaza today, we we see them taking a slightly different line from the zionist regime, but the one country that we still see to date that unequically supports the israeli regime, may that be militarily, may that be diplomatically, may that be in the international arena in the united nations, that is the united states of america, so now

it makes sense said that america is the great satan, american b said that, many must not understood that statement before, but it is now seen it is now, it is now, we can we can now conclude that the statement that was made by imam, it had lot of wisdom in it, reg is not the real issue, but it is rather the policies of the us empire that has empowered this weak, this this this this so-called state, this occupying power which is as weak as the spiders web in that region, and another statement that i would like to make in in addition to the previous question that was asked few minutes back is that when the zionist regime tries to target a military. personnel from hizbullah like they targeted shaheed ali abdul hassan naim who was one of

the leaders of the heavy warhead rocket fire unit of hizbullah we need to understand that and they already know but just to kind of reiterate for the audience is that hisbullah is very organized it's an organized military giant in the region now they thought that they'll be able to weaken hizbullah when iman was murdered they thought that will become weak, but history has shown us that the the the school of martidom within hizbullah has only strengthened hizbullah and has made them into the giant that they are today, they are so organized that they work in ways that they always have parallel leaderships within their divisions like any other military. power. mr. batal hamas uh has hailed a ruling by the international court of justice ordering the

israeli regime to address famon in gaza. the reaction came after the icj ordered israel to allow the immediate delivery of humanitarian supplies into gaza. hamas has called on the international community to create mechanism to ensure uh the orders implementation. how do you see that happening? what would be step one in your opinion? yes. i think this is an. important development and to give your viewers context, i think south africa has been busy with this since january or december when the hearings initially started at the ' national court of justice, the application was made, and in fact the icj has now issued three orders in terms of provisional measures. initially the provisional measures were very clear in secint that there needs to be humanitarian corridor and it needs to be accessed to aid, and that was one of the conditions. we saw the united states and

israel uh use and use it in a different way, they've used the haspara and the spin of... on the order stating that the word cease fire did not was not included, but the order could not be effected without an effect of cease fire because of the humanitarian aid it was required at scale. subsequently to that, south africa requested further measures to the international court of justice, and the response from the icj was that no further provisional measures were required, israel was bound to the initial order that was given by the court. and just recently the the order based on femine and starvation, we know that the catastrophic situation that now exists in gaza, northern gaza is effectively now separated from southern gaza, netanyahu has spoken about the demilitarized zone, which means effectively more billigerant military

occupation, and and and certainly that feminine and starvation is serious problem. south africa in its application stated that there is almost a concern for about 80,000 civilian deaths that are imminent if this problem is not you know seriously redressed as there is imminent imminent harm to a civilian population and of course there was also the un rapporter that came out with her report an anatomy of a genocide claiming and claiming that israel is guilty of at least three of the five acts in terms of the genocide convention. so the international pressure is mounting, the international community has spoken clearly through the general assembly, and fortunately the un security council has always been politicized and we've seen the number of vetos that the us has exercised, but my view and i just come back from from tehran recently is that there's nothing stopping islamic states or

muslim countries from intervening in this crisis, and in fact my belief is that they should have intervened from the... the outset, because we know that israel is is is now a ultra right zio fascist government, and they've been held on the destruction of the palestinian population. we're not only seeing this genocide unfold in gaza, but also the increased rates in the occupied palestinian territories, so muslim countries and countries should intervene and and but they need to be politically enabled. and not be politically influenced and controlled unfortunately by the western powers that that you know have neutralized them, that is the reality of of the fact that they've been utterly nutrized only way that we gain being able to see any movement is through the resistance or the access of resistance, but they not going to be enable to be able to provide the humanitarian aid at scale, so i

think we got to insist on the international measures and the international community. uh to force israel to comply with the international court of justice uh orders uh that humanitarian aid be delivered, right? access be opened and that uh it be provided to the needs of the tazen population. what a now we're running short of time, but i want you uh to - to discuss a video that surfaced showing israeli forces executing unarmed palestinians near gaza's coast, they were waving white flags in a show of surrender the... israi soldiers, after murdering them, they went to bury their bodies in the sand with bulldozer. is this a clear indication that this genocidal massacre has not only been a war against gaza's resistance, but actually against all of its people. absolutely. the resistance has simply been used as a pretext. um, the civilians in gaza have not, this is not recent, this war did

not start after october 7th as most of the world might think, but this genocide against... "the the innocent civilians of gaza is exactly why you now have freedom fighters in the shape of hamas, islamic jihad, the alaxar brigades who are now defending the very rights of their people, and also i would like to reiterate the fact that to to to to go down on such low levels to to assault and to respect civilians in such manner and only be expected off the zionist regime and only goes to show how..." weak they are that because they cannot fight like real men, they can't fight the military, they can't fight palestinian freedom fighters, they exert their frustration and their pressure on innocent civil. by disrespecting and insulting them like this, but they need to understand is only exposing themselves when they act in such matter. okay, i'm sorry, uh, we're running short of

time now, allow me to thank my guestsuh ibrahim pattel international human rights defender joining us from johannesburg, and human rights activist movi speaking to us from houston, texas. thank you gentlemen, and also allow me to thank our viewers for staying with us on tonight. spotlight is good night for now, and see you next time. bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

eid al-fitr, which marks one month of obedience to god in the holy fasting month of ramadan, is a special feast. muslims feel

festive and proud for their servitude to god. ramadan is called the month of blessings. out of respect for the holy month, muslims put aside their differences and hostilities and forge a stronger unity. different cities and villages in iran have their own traditions for ramadan which date back to centuries. get a glimpse of it in this documentary on press tv. we're ready to marsh, let's start slowly, but strongly and solidarity with the palestine and israel

is one of the worst things that has happened or zionism is one of the worst things that has happened to the jewish people, the my experience it. really, really wasn't until the 80s that i was able to open my heart enough to see truly what israel and zionism had done and was doing and continue to do. i did not grow up as an anti-zionist, which is what i am today. i grew up as a zionist in a very sionist family that identified judaism with. abu hussein iraq.

كشيعه وعايشين برا بالخارج يعني تحس اكو فرد اتصال روحي بينك وبين هالبلد هذا يعني لانه شيعه وبيها الامام الرضا سلام الله عليه see the story of a man who is recounting the tales from the recent past.

ich bin 28 jahre alt und lebe in nordenham, es war auch schwer für mich da auszubrechen, es hat lange gedauert, also das ist eigentlich erst passiert, nachdem ich ramen kennengelernt habe, für mich war klar, ich möchte ein eine muslimische frau sein mit einem muslimischen mann, wir wollen beide ein bodenständiges leben und dass ich den, wie ich gehen möchte. ja, heute werde ich in der moschee des glaubensbekenntnis des islams aussagen vor einem gelehrten und damit offiziell zum islam konvertiert.

your headlines on press tv is really forces kill scores of palestinian civilians in indiscriminant strikes across gaza as total death toll from the regimes geneside exceeds 32,600. a new report says the biden administration has quietly authorized a transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to israel in recent days and the islamic resistance in iraq targets and israeli military site in the occupied golen heights in support of the palestinian people in gaza.